Ion-Maze – Interactive Grover Oracle Pulse-Mapping Tool

[learningdungeon]

Hi OQD Team,

This is my submission for Bounty 1. As a Qiskit Advocate, I have developed the Ion-Maze, an interactive application that bridges the gap between abstract gate logic and physical trapped-ion control pulses.

The Concept:

Instead of a "black-box" execution, users act as pulse engineers. They must manually construct a Grover Oracle by applying "X-gate sandwiches" to mark target states. This teaches the fundamental "grammar" of quantum algorithms through the lens of hardware actuation.

Hardware Integration:

I have mapped the game logic directly to the OQD hardware interfaces:

Lasers: Every digital X-gate triggered in the UI pulses the corresponding physical red diode laser via device lasers set intensity.

Trap: The Calibration phase utilizes the trap position controls to simulate physical ion alignment.

Camera: The final results represent a processed readout from the overhead camera measurement system.

Technical Stack:

Engine: Powered by Qiskit Aer (supporting 2-6 ions).

UI: Built with GUI, styled to integrate seamlessly with the existing OQD demo interface.

Logic: Implements a "Smart Threshold" success check based on theoretical quantum probability limits.

Files Added:

src/oqd_teaching_demo/gui/ion_maze_gui.py (The game interface)

src/oqd_teaching_demo/control/grover_engine.py (The Qiskit-powered logic)

I look forward to your feedback and am excited to see how this can support OQD’s global outreach efforts!

Best regards,

Noor Ul Ain Faisal
IBM Qiskit Advocate | QuLearnLabs Alumni - Quantum Software Engineer | MIT iQHACK ‘26 Selectee

[benjimaclellan]

@learningdungeon Thanks for the submission! I've already accepted another PR for the unitaryDESIGN bounty, but will dig into this submission more to understand features it adds - it looks very interesting! I'd still be happy to merge it into the oqd-teaching-demo repo as another interactive UI for the hardware demo, if you're still interested. Thanks for participating in the hackathon!

[learningdungeon]

Hi Congratulations bounty winner! Yes sure I'm interested and you can add this interactive game of grover, I developed it for UF Note: It's an open source All the very best for future endeavors Regards Noor

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On Sat, 28 Feb 2026, 3:42 am Benjamin MacLellan, ***@***.***> wrote: ***@***.**** commented on this pull request. @learningdungeon <https://github.com/learningdungeon> Thanks for the submission! I've already accepted another PR for the unitaryDESIGN bounty, but will dig into this submission more to understand features it adds - it looks very interesting! I'd still be happy to merge it into the oqd-teaching-demo repo as another interactive UI for the hardware demo, if you're still interested. Thanks for participating in the hackathon! — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#10 (review)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BPZAYEL3YBB6IC47WVL5XUL4ODB53AVCNFSM6AAAAACWA7EWGOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43YUDVNRWFEZLROVSXG5CSMV3GSZLXHMZTQNRZGQZTINJZGA> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>